Latest / Stuff You Should Know / Selects: What Happens When the Government Thinks You're Dead?
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Hello, they're friends. That's Josh. And for this week's Select,
- 0:03Speaker 1: I chose our episode that takes a frank and thrilling
- 0:06Speaker 1: look at what happens when the government thinks you're dead.
- 0:09Speaker 1: As you can imagine, nothing good is the answer to that.
- 0:13Speaker 1: I hope you enjoy. Welcome to Stuff you should know,
- 0:20Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, I'm welcome to
- 0:29Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w Chuck, Bryan,
- 0:32Speaker 1: there's Jerry over there. Jerry's not eating anything today. Chuk.
- 0:37Speaker 1: There is clear And did you just do that as
- 0:39Speaker 1: a coaster? Yes, I don't want to make a chinky
- 0:43Speaker 1: sound every time, Like Okay, I thought I don't want that.
- 0:48Speaker 1: I want this now, I get it. Did you hear that?
- 0:50Speaker 1: You didn't hear anything? No, I'm I said everyone. Josh
- 0:53Speaker 1: just folded up his notes and put his can of
- 0:57Speaker 1: cola down on that. And I've never seen you do that,
- 1:00Speaker 1: And I thought you were trying to preserve this cheap.
- 1:04Speaker 1: This thing is tougher than they. Okay, so it was
- 1:07Speaker 1: a sound thing. Sure, it's a sound dampening technique. Can
- 1:10Speaker 1: look at us after all these years. I came up
- 1:12Speaker 1: with that up in our game um, so, Chuck, do
- 1:16Speaker 1: you remember we did a social Security number episode? Did we?
- 1:21Speaker 1: I thought, so, you don't remember that one. It was
- 1:24Speaker 1: one of those ones where you're like, my eyes are
- 1:26Speaker 1: going to bleed because this is so boring, but it
- 1:28Speaker 1: turned out to be pretty interesting. It was one of
- 1:30Speaker 1: those remember that. But we should give a little bit
- 1:32Speaker 1: of a refresher on social Security numbers. Okay, yeah, here's mine.
- 1:37Speaker 1: Oh you're gonna give your your to eight seven, nine four. No,
- 1:40Speaker 1: I don't even because what if I just accidentally said
- 1:44Speaker 1: someone else's like made one up? Yeah, and some dudes listening,
- 1:50Speaker 1: it's like, dude, how'd you know Todd? It's always Todd?
- 1:56Speaker 1: I don't know. So, so security numbers, get this everybody.
- 2:00Speaker 1: They first started being issued in November of nine six,
- 2:04Speaker 1: and the Social Security Administration was created to administer a
- 2:10Speaker 1: new deal program of federal benefits, things like welfare or
- 2:14Speaker 1: retirement benefits, medicare UM. The entire reason any of us
- 2:20Speaker 1: originally were given a Social Security number was to track
- 2:23Speaker 1: our lifetime earnings and to um determine how much we'd
- 2:28Speaker 1: put into Social Security so that when we retired, they
- 2:32Speaker 1: could determine how much we should get out in retirement.
- 2:35Speaker 1: That's why everyone has a SOFAL security number. And because
- 2:38Speaker 1: there are nine digits um, there's something like a billion
- 2:41Speaker 1: different possible combinations. And we're about halfway towards using up
- 2:46Speaker 1: the SOB security numbers, but probably gaining fast. We are
- 2:51Speaker 1: starting to gain much faster than we were before, a
- 2:53Speaker 1: good point, but we still got plenty of time. But
- 2:56Speaker 1: because of this um, social security numbers get tired when
- 3:00Speaker 1: you die, which we'll get to. But originally, when when
- 3:05Speaker 1: you were given social Security number, that was it. It
- 3:07Speaker 1: wasn't meant for anything else but to track your earnings
- 3:10Speaker 1: in to figure out your retirement. Right. Yeah, not like
- 3:12Speaker 1: when you get to go to get a haircut basically
- 3:15Speaker 1: and they ask you for your Social Security number. And
- 3:17Speaker 1: the seventies, the federal government said, okay, there's a couple
- 3:20Speaker 1: of other things that you should really have your SOLI
- 3:22Speaker 1: Security number. For a passport, UM makes sense if you
- 3:26Speaker 1: go to open a bank account that was a new
- 3:28Speaker 1: one too, I'll buy that UM. But then, like you said,
- 3:31Speaker 1: like as computers came along, now everybody asked what it's
- 3:35Speaker 1: become an identifier in a in an authenticator, and that
- 3:38Speaker 1: is really bad. That is not what we should be
- 3:41Speaker 1: doing with social Security numbers. It really not only that,
- 3:46Speaker 1: but the phone numbers and everything and addresses. It just
- 3:48Speaker 1: annoys me. And I'm not like a conspiracy guy. It's
- 3:51Speaker 1: not like I think, like, oh, what are they going
- 3:53Speaker 1: to do with this? It just annoys me. Well, and
- 3:56Speaker 1: I can't get a haircut without provide. I'm like, I
- 3:59Speaker 1: have cash in my and you have scissors. Can we
- 4:02Speaker 1: just do this right? Can we do it like Floyd style?
- 4:06Speaker 1: You know? But it annoys me. But even if you
- 4:09Speaker 1: take away the annoyance, companies have proven time and time
- 4:12Speaker 1: and time again that they're not to be trusted protecting
- 4:16Speaker 1: your SO Security number because to authenticate you saying who
- 4:20Speaker 1: you are who you say you are, they've got to
- 4:22Speaker 1: have your SO Security number on file. And when somebody
- 4:25Speaker 1: hacks into their databases, they get your SO Security number.
- 4:28Speaker 1: All of your information is right there, and it's become
- 4:31Speaker 1: a real problem. But it's also become a real problem
- 4:35Speaker 1: living a modern life without giving out SO security number. Right.
- 4:40Speaker 1: So we say all this to point out that if
- 4:42Speaker 1: for some reason, you didn't have a Social Security number
- 4:45Speaker 1: any longer, it would be tough to navigate life. And
- 4:49Speaker 1: that actually happens to some people. Yeah, if you've seen
- 4:53Speaker 1: the movie Brazil, Oh is it like this? You never
- 4:56Speaker 1: saw Brazil. It's it's sort of this in a future
- 5:01Speaker 1: dystopian world, but you know, basically like it's it's bureaucracy
- 5:06Speaker 1: at its best of someone who's you know, dead or
- 5:11Speaker 1: not dead, and the government mixes it up. Is that
- 5:13Speaker 1: what Brazil is about? Yeah? I did not know that. Yeah,
- 5:16Speaker 1: I'm glad you brought that up thing because we would
- 5:18Speaker 1: have heard from people. It's it's an Yeah, it's good, right,
- 5:21Speaker 1: it is. And you should go listen to the movie
- 5:23Speaker 1: Crush episode on Brazil with Jonathan Colton. Okay, yeah, I
- 5:28Speaker 1: didn't know that. Why no one slipped past me. I
- 5:30Speaker 1: wasn't talking to you, but sure, you're welcome to listen. Thanks,
- 5:34Speaker 1: I'm part of everybody. I had to go to the
- 5:37Speaker 1: Social Security Office recently to get a card because of
- 5:40Speaker 1: this job in our new company. Really, yeah, I had
- 5:44Speaker 1: to prove, you know whatever, that I'm alive. You didn't unemployable.
- 5:48Speaker 1: I guess you didn't just give him your passport. I
- 5:50Speaker 1: couldn't find my passport because I'm in between houses right
- 5:54Speaker 1: now and it was buried somewhere. Okay, but you do
- 5:57Speaker 1: have it, because we're probably going to Toronto this year.
- 5:59Speaker 1: I do have it. I did find it kind of
- 6:01Speaker 1: after I went to the Social Security office. But all
- 6:04Speaker 1: that was just to say that if you think the
- 6:07Speaker 1: d m V is a pit of despair, just go
- 6:11Speaker 1: to the Social Security I want to It's not fun.
- 6:14Speaker 1: I really don't want to know. So, um, okay, you
- 6:18Speaker 1: can imagine how bad it is when everything's just hunky
- 6:21Speaker 1: dory and you just need a copy of your card.
- 6:24Speaker 1: That's all you needed. Right For some people, some poor
- 6:27Speaker 1: SAPs out there, they are thought by the government and
- 6:31Speaker 1: listed by the government as having died, and that is
- 6:35Speaker 1: a big problem if you're alive. Yes, because again, you
- 6:39Speaker 1: need your Social Security number for everything to start with.
- 6:43Speaker 1: And then secondly, because we have enough social Security numbers
- 6:47Speaker 1: to go around. Like I said, when you die, you're
- 6:50Speaker 1: so security number gets retired with you and they hang
- 6:53Speaker 1: in in the rafters of your local NBA franchise. It's
- 6:56Speaker 1: exactly right. If you look really closely, they're all up there.
- 7:00Speaker 1: But um, that's that is a problem for somebody who
- 7:04Speaker 1: gets listed as dead on what's called the death Master file.
- 7:08Speaker 1: Do I need to say it now? Even somebody listening
- 7:12Speaker 1: to the very first stuff. You should know right now.
- 7:15Speaker 1: They know what you're saying. There's a bunch of good
- 7:17Speaker 1: band names in here. But Death Master File is pretty good.
- 7:20Speaker 1: So uh. It's also called the Social Security Death Index,
- 7:24Speaker 1: but death Master files way better. I think you would agree.
- 7:27Speaker 1: It depends on who you're talking to. I think genealogists
- 7:29Speaker 1: typically call it the s S d I. Everybody else
- 7:32Speaker 1: calls it the death Master File. That's what I saw,
- 7:34Speaker 1: you know why, because they don't know how to party
- 7:37Speaker 1: or they get their own little weird party going on.
- 7:39Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I didn't think about that. Um. Yeah, you
- 7:42Speaker 1: gotta look at people differently sometimes. I was trying to
- 7:44Speaker 1: think of the bumper sticker. Genealogists do it blank in
- 7:48Speaker 1: the in the archives. Genealogists do it with their DNA,
- 7:54Speaker 1: with their dead ancestors. It's two bumper stickers, just having
- 8:00Speaker 1: ellipses had become of one. So uh, all right, where
- 8:05Speaker 1: were we the d MF. Alright, it's it was established
- 8:07Speaker 1: at the same time the Social Security numbers were back
- 8:11Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty six, and then it took all the
- 8:13Speaker 1: way to night before the public could even see this list,
- 8:18Speaker 1: right right, there was a freedom of Information Act that
- 8:21Speaker 1: was filed back in night um, and there was a
- 8:24Speaker 1: lawsuit in the federal court said you know what, yeah,
- 8:27Speaker 1: this is this is public information. You have to publish this.
- 8:30Speaker 1: And there's actually like a master death master file that's
- 8:35Speaker 1: called the New Newmandent and that's like everything, and that's
- 8:41Speaker 1: the that's the one that the death master file is
- 8:43Speaker 1: derived from. The public version of it is the death
- 8:46Speaker 1: master file, right which, when you die, there a bunch
- 8:50Speaker 1: of ways that your name can get to the s
- 8:53Speaker 1: s A, the Social Security Administration. Sometimes it's a funeral home.
- 8:58Speaker 1: Sometimes it's from like a spittle. Sometimes it's from your family, um,
- 9:03Speaker 1: because it's the family's responsibility ultimately to report it. But
- 9:06Speaker 1: most of the time the funeral home is the one
- 9:08Speaker 1: that actually does is like a service. I wouldn't have
- 9:10Speaker 1: known that, but I also saw, um, well now you know, um,
- 9:14Speaker 1: there's probably some poor stuff. You should know a listener,
- 9:17Speaker 1: our condolences, who's dealing with this right now? It's your
- 9:21Speaker 1: responsibility to go report this to the Social Security Administration. Yeah, okay,
- 9:26Speaker 1: that's sad. I also saw that your bank, the postal service,
- 9:31Speaker 1: some other randos are legally allowed to report your death
- 9:35Speaker 1: as well, so as the post off post person to
- 9:38Speaker 1: saying like, I haven't picked up their mail in like
- 9:40Speaker 1: three weeks, they're dead. To me, I think I should
- 9:43Speaker 1: just report that. I don't. I don't know I could.
- 9:45Speaker 1: I could not find the procedure from that anything other
- 9:50Speaker 1: than a couple of good sources mentioned the postal service
- 9:54Speaker 1: as a legal place, the legal entity that can report
- 9:58Speaker 1: your death to the FEDS. Right, So why do they
- 10:01Speaker 1: want this death Master File? Of course, if you have
- 10:04Speaker 1: paid UM, well, the government needs to know if you're
- 10:07Speaker 1: not around anymore. It's kind of that simple. There's a
- 10:10Speaker 1: couple of reasons why. Yes, they need to know, because
- 10:13Speaker 1: you get a little dough They can't have your Soubsecurity
- 10:16Speaker 1: number out there. They need to know that you're deceased
- 10:19Speaker 1: UM because they don't want to be paying um income
- 10:24Speaker 1: tax refunds if somebody starts filing them fraudulently. They don't
- 10:28Speaker 1: want people opening bank accounts in your name. They want
- 10:31Speaker 1: to make sure that you're listed as dead. And so
- 10:35Speaker 1: that's what the Death Master File does. It kind of
- 10:37Speaker 1: serves as the storehouse for all the people in America
- 10:41Speaker 1: who have been dead basically since the sixties. But it
- 10:44Speaker 1: goes as far back as nineteen thirty six or thirty seven,
- 10:47Speaker 1: which is surprisingly more than a hundred million people. Yes,
- 10:51Speaker 1: but they think that there's maybe up to sixteen million
- 10:54Speaker 1: dead people missing from this list. It's not it's not perfect.
- 10:58Speaker 1: We'll spoil now. I guess we should then follow that
- 11:01Speaker 1: statement by saying there are tens of thousands of people
- 11:04Speaker 1: on that list who should not be on that list,
- 11:06Speaker 1: right exactly, But before we get to there, um, This
- 11:09Speaker 1: Death Masterfile originally was so Social Security could track who
- 11:12Speaker 1: was dead and who wasn't, so they could determine who
- 11:15Speaker 1: to pay Social Security Administration benefits out to the survivors.
- 11:19Speaker 1: Get this, did you know this? If you're in America
- 11:21Speaker 1: and you're the recipient, you're the survivor of somebody who
- 11:23Speaker 1: gets Social Security, you get a cool two hundred and
- 11:26Speaker 1: fifty five dollars to help bury them. Yeah. That's when
- 11:29Speaker 1: I said you get a little dough that I meant little,
- 11:32Speaker 1: a little dough. Yeah, maybe like one of the fancy
- 11:36Speaker 1: handles on the casket would be covered by that. I
- 11:40Speaker 1: don't even think you can get cremated for two hundred dollars.
- 11:43Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't even think they'll leave you
- 11:45Speaker 1: in a ditch out back for two hundred dollars. A
- 11:47Speaker 1: sky burial costs more than that. Maybe that try state
- 11:50Speaker 1: crematorium would take your two hundred fifty dollars. But that's it.
- 11:54Speaker 1: Do you remember them? Oh? Sure, yeah evil? So uh,
- 12:00Speaker 1: like you said, mistakes are made. And this is where
- 12:02Speaker 1: it turns slightly Brazil, there was an investigation in two
- 12:06Speaker 1: thousand eleven and they actually named grave Mistakes, which is
- 12:10Speaker 1: hysterical by Scripps Howard News service. And what they did
- 12:14Speaker 1: was they took uh this master death file from three
- 12:18Speaker 1: different years two thousand eight, two thousand eleven. They created
- 12:22Speaker 1: a computer program to basically just compare them to see
- 12:27Speaker 1: what they came up with. And that they found, uh third,
- 12:30Speaker 1: almost thirty two thousand living people who were listed as deceased,
- 12:35Speaker 1: and ninety eight or two thousand eight that were then
- 12:37Speaker 1: taken off that list after they realized that they goofed
- 12:40Speaker 1: up in two thousand eleven. So these people had spent months, years,
- 12:45Speaker 1: maybe um listed as dead. And here's the problem. It's
- 12:48Speaker 1: bad enough if you go to apply for Medicare because
- 12:52Speaker 1: you've retired or Social Security benefits and the government says
- 12:56Speaker 1: denied UM you're dead and you're listed as dead, because
- 13:00Speaker 1: as far as the government's concerned, if you're on this,
- 13:03Speaker 1: you're dead. To them. That's bad enough. But remember that
- 13:08Speaker 1: Freedom of Information Act Um lawsuit that opened the thing
- 13:11Speaker 1: up to being published publicly. The reason why that suit
- 13:16Speaker 1: was filed is because the business community said, hey, we
- 13:19Speaker 1: can really use that thing there. It's basically it would
- 13:23Speaker 1: be like a big do not take checks from these
- 13:26Speaker 1: people list for all dead Americans. Because if somebody comes
- 13:31Speaker 1: to us and wants to open a bank account, wants
- 13:33Speaker 1: to get an insurance policy, wants to get a car,
- 13:36Speaker 1: wants to get a job, it doesn't matter, wants to
- 13:39Speaker 1: do something where they could take us for a ride,
- 13:42Speaker 1: if they're a fraud, then if we had this list
- 13:46Speaker 1: to check against, like social Security numbers or names or whatever,
- 13:49Speaker 1: we could root out fraud and we could defend ourselves
- 13:52Speaker 1: from identity theft and the fraud that's perpetrated by it.
- 13:56Speaker 1: And so banks, insurance company, car dealerships, cable companies, employers, everybody,
- 14:05Speaker 1: other government agencies, all barbers, they don't forget them. They
- 14:09Speaker 1: all use this death Master file, which is available publicly
- 14:13Speaker 1: to check your applications against. And if the government says
- 14:18Speaker 1: that you're dead. It says that on this file, whether
- 14:20Speaker 1: it's right or wrong, you're dead. And that's a whole
- 14:24Speaker 1: lot of problems for you. We're gonna get into those
- 14:28Speaker 1: right after this, and things chock chock stop. So before
- 14:58Speaker 1: we broke, I was talking about that, uh, that scripts
- 15:01Speaker 1: um investigation, and there was an Inspector General's report in
- 15:05Speaker 1: two thousand and eight that kind of pulled back the
- 15:08Speaker 1: curtain on this stuff, and Social Security said, uh, yeah,
- 15:13Speaker 1: that's about right. There's there's a lot of people tens
- 15:16Speaker 1: of thousands that we think are dead and aren't dead,
- 15:19Speaker 1: but they're they're success rates pretty good. Yeah, and he said,
- 15:23Speaker 1: they said, but we're at a ninety nine point five
- 15:26Speaker 1: nine rate of accuracy, which is not too bad for
- 15:30Speaker 1: a government bureaucracy. That's really good. And they said that
- 15:34Speaker 1: of the time, can you can fix it in just
- 15:37Speaker 1: a year, just a hellish year. Yeah, not too bad. Um.
- 15:43Speaker 1: And so they basically admitted two being a government. Uh.
- 15:50Speaker 1: I don't want to knock them too much because it
- 15:53Speaker 1: feels like everyone's always, you know, knocking government work. But
- 15:56Speaker 1: they're basically saying like, yeah, man, it these names are miskeeeds.
- 16:00Speaker 1: Or these numbers are miskeyed. Sometimes happens, so UM. The
- 16:06Speaker 1: thing is that point for one percent error rate, that's
- 16:10Speaker 1: tens of thousands of people every year. There's like two
- 16:13Speaker 1: point seven million people added to this list every year
- 16:16Speaker 1: who die in America, right, so it adds up to
- 16:20Speaker 1: a lot of errors. The thing is that SoC Security
- 16:23Speaker 1: Administration UM, so they take their Death Master file, they
- 16:28Speaker 1: handed over to the National Technical Information Service, and they're
- 16:32Speaker 1: the ones who distributed to all the insurance companies, the
- 16:35Speaker 1: genealogy websites, I think ancestry dot com publishes it UM,
- 16:40Speaker 1: the yeah insurance companies, everybody who wants to do a
- 16:44Speaker 1: background check on you, they all get their their versions
- 16:47Speaker 1: of this from them, the National Technical Information Service. But
- 16:52Speaker 1: part of the agreement to get this from them you
- 16:56Speaker 1: have to pay for it, is that you have to
- 16:58Speaker 1: keep your DMF up to date because if you just
- 17:02Speaker 1: buy one every once in a while UM and the
- 17:05Speaker 1: Social Security Administration finds an error on and updates their file.
- 17:09Speaker 1: If you don't go get the new file, your old
- 17:11Speaker 1: file is still going to have that error. And that's
- 17:14Speaker 1: when it becomes problematic for the people who are listed
- 17:17Speaker 1: as deceased. When they try to go get credit and
- 17:20Speaker 1: it kind of has a tendency to spread once it's
- 17:23Speaker 1: out there. Yeah. So, like I said, sometimes it's being
- 17:27Speaker 1: mis keyed. UM. One I think they said like one
- 17:30Speaker 1: out of every two hundred is just from clerical error. Um.
- 17:35Speaker 1: Sometimes it can be like, um, a family member goes
- 17:39Speaker 1: to report to death and they accidentally make a mistake
- 17:43Speaker 1: where they might end up being on the death list. Yeah.
- 17:45Speaker 1: I don't know how that happens, but it does happen.
- 17:48Speaker 1: There are people like Don Pilger human error, married du
- 17:52Speaker 1: Bord who who apparently married du Board just gave up.
- 17:56Speaker 1: She She's like, my husband can get credit cards still,
- 17:58Speaker 1: I'm just gonna live off of uh. Sometimes you this
- 18:02Speaker 1: one woman named Candice Atkins just accidentally clicked deceased on
- 18:06Speaker 1: a tax return on an electronic filing, and that was it.
- 18:09Speaker 1: Can you imagine now, I can't believe there's not an undo.
- 18:13Speaker 1: That's yeah, I was looking at me that she had submitted.
- 18:16Speaker 1: I guess you could probably have undone it in the moment,
- 18:19Speaker 1: but she didn't realize it and submitted it, right, But
- 18:21Speaker 1: you should still be able to undo that. Um. And
- 18:25Speaker 1: then there are some weird things these uh anomalies that
- 18:28Speaker 1: you dug up. Um. More than false listings made in
- 18:33Speaker 1: two thousand seven were from Illinois. Yep. It sounds like
- 18:37Speaker 1: a hiccup in the system to me. I hiccup in
- 18:39Speaker 1: the system or a super lazy data entry person you think. Yeah. Uh.
- 18:45Speaker 1: More than two million Americans were falsely listed as dying
- 18:49Speaker 1: on the fifte and that was just an internal policy,
- 18:53Speaker 1: is to use the fifte as a default value when
- 18:56Speaker 1: they didn't know at the middle of the month. Sounds
- 18:58Speaker 1: good to me. Um, I guess that was just the
- 19:01Speaker 1: question of not going to the trouble of verifying the
- 19:04Speaker 1: information right so um. And it can happen the other
- 19:07Speaker 1: way too, you can be I think at least six
- 19:11Speaker 1: million dead Americans are labeled as alive, which is a
- 19:14Speaker 1: huge problem because you're you're just your information is out
- 19:18Speaker 1: there ready to be abused by the nefarious. Well, no,
- 19:22Speaker 1: that's the opposite. If you're If you're listed as deceased
- 19:25Speaker 1: but you're still alive, your information is being published and
- 19:29Speaker 1: can be used for identity fraud. If you're actually dead
- 19:34Speaker 1: and not listed. If somebody knows that you're dead and
- 19:37Speaker 1: not listed, they can use your stuff to to perpetrate
- 19:39Speaker 1: fraud against the government. Yeah, that's what I was saying. Yeah,
- 19:42Speaker 1: sixty seven thousand of those people, of those numbers were
- 19:46Speaker 1: used to report three billion dollars in income between two
- 19:49Speaker 1: thousand and six and two thousand eleven. That's a lot
- 19:52Speaker 1: of text return refunds, so fraud. Yeah, So it's a
- 19:57Speaker 1: problem both ways, where either you're dead and you're not
- 20:01Speaker 1: listed on there, or you're not dead and they listed
- 20:06Speaker 1: you anyway. And like I was saying earlier, this once
- 20:10Speaker 1: this information gets out there, because there's so many different
- 20:13Speaker 1: entities getting this list, once it's out there, it stays
- 20:17Speaker 1: out there. It's very tough to go around to everyone
- 20:21Speaker 1: and and get this information changed. Even once you get
- 20:24Speaker 1: it changed with the Social Security Administration, because while it's
- 20:27Speaker 1: a requirement to keep your your list up to date,
- 20:30Speaker 1: if you're a subscriber, there's no enforcement to it. There's
- 20:34Speaker 1: nobody who comes along and says, let me see your list.
- 20:37Speaker 1: Oh it's not up to date. Give me give me
- 20:39Speaker 1: ten dollars that you're fine. There's nobody enforcing it. So
- 20:44Speaker 1: once it's out there, it's very tough to undo. It
- 20:47Speaker 1: takes forever, uh well less than a year on average supposedly.
- 20:53Speaker 1: So there are a lot of horror stories, UM for
- 20:55Speaker 1: what this can due to someone's life. UM. This one
- 20:59Speaker 1: per Sin Rivers. What's the first name, Judy Rivers. Judy
- 21:03Speaker 1: Rivers Rivers Cuomo. UM. Police actually detained Judy Rivers from
- 21:09Speaker 1: using because she used a debit card, her own debit
- 21:12Speaker 1: card at a Walmart at Walmart Plus. She also had
- 21:15Speaker 1: a mountain dew bottle size meth lab in her pocket. Uh.
- 21:21Speaker 1: But in like it seems like all of these cases.
- 21:23Speaker 1: It ranges from stuff like, um, your insurance gets all
- 21:28Speaker 1: messed up, or your maybe disability checks or your Medicaid payments,
- 21:33Speaker 1: or you're trying to get a home loan or trying
- 21:35Speaker 1: to get a credit card, like anything that you can
- 21:37Speaker 1: think of where a social Security number might help. You
- 21:40Speaker 1: can't get a haircut. You should see how long the
- 21:42Speaker 1: hair is on these people. Even if you have cash,
- 21:46Speaker 1: they won't do it. Rivers ended up living out of
- 21:48Speaker 1: her car for six months. Yeah, she had just a
- 21:51Speaker 1: really bad time of it for five years. UM. And
- 21:54Speaker 1: at first she didn't know what was going on because
- 21:57Speaker 1: she was frozen out of her bank accounts. Because this
- 21:59Speaker 1: is something said like like you you can't get future loans,
- 22:04Speaker 1: you can't get future insurance policies, you can't get future credit.
- 22:07Speaker 1: But also the stuff that you already have, your current
- 22:11Speaker 1: bank accounts, all that stuff gets frozen because you're listed
- 22:14Speaker 1: is dead, and so that comes up on the computer
- 22:17Speaker 1: and your account gets frozen. And even when you show
- 22:20Speaker 1: up and say hey, it's me, you know me, the
- 22:22Speaker 1: teller can't do anything about it. The bank can't do
- 22:25Speaker 1: anything about it. It's it's done. And now you've just
- 22:28Speaker 1: been pitted against the system. Yes, and it's like there's
- 22:34Speaker 1: no door you can go knock on and say, hey,
- 22:39Speaker 1: we can clear this up in just a few minutes.
- 22:41Speaker 1: I'm clearly alive. You just click the few little things
- 22:44Speaker 1: you need to click to get my life back. Because
- 22:46Speaker 1: the c US government it's not nearly that easy. So
- 22:49Speaker 1: I guess, said Chuck, that brings up what to do
- 22:51Speaker 1: because there actually are procedures in place, Like we said,
- 22:54Speaker 1: the Social Security Administration says this is not fully accurate.
- 22:57Speaker 1: Anybody gets this list needs to keep updating it as
- 23:00Speaker 1: we update it. I think they released an updated list weekly.
- 23:04Speaker 1: They don't even tell you though, you find out the
- 23:06Speaker 1: hard way almost always. That's a big one. Yeah, it's
- 23:09Speaker 1: not like they say, by the way, we found an error, UM,
- 23:12Speaker 1: because they don't know. They don't know you're alive. Right,
- 23:14Speaker 1: So I actually called the Social Security Administration. I did
- 23:18Speaker 1: because I wanted answers. You didn't go to the office. No,
- 23:21Speaker 1: I didn't know. It was a little laterward. It wasn't cowardless,
- 23:25Speaker 1: it was laziness. So UM I was talking to like
- 23:28Speaker 1: just the the guy who answered, and he knew exactly
- 23:31Speaker 1: what I was talking about, knew all the procedures. But
- 23:33Speaker 1: I asked him. I was like, do you guys ever
- 23:35Speaker 1: uncover this yourselves or is it when people come to
- 23:38Speaker 1: you that you know there's a mistake. He's like, yeah,
- 23:39Speaker 1: when people come to us. So supposedly there's all these
- 23:42Speaker 1: reforms in place and all that. But I think still
- 23:45Speaker 1: for the most part, when an error is uncovered, it's
- 23:48Speaker 1: because you found it out. But even if they do
- 23:50Speaker 1: find it out, yes, what you said is true, they
- 23:53Speaker 1: don't inform the person, which is kind of a violation
- 23:57Speaker 1: of the UM the Privacy Act, I would think. So
- 24:02Speaker 1: from what I understand, it is like anytime your confidential
- 24:05Speaker 1: information is breached and made public, UM, you're supposed to
- 24:09Speaker 1: be informed about that. So the SSA should be sending
- 24:12Speaker 1: out letters, but as far as I know, they do not.
- 24:15Speaker 1: I love this quote in here, um, under the section
- 24:17Speaker 1: on what to do, Like the Social Security Administration is
- 24:20Speaker 1: trying to correct this, and there's a quote from someone
- 24:24Speaker 1: who works there that said that sometimes they'll go out
- 24:27Speaker 1: and see if old Americans are really still alive, and
- 24:30Speaker 1: it it says this, we go to medicare and see
- 24:33Speaker 1: if anyone hasn't been to medicare for three years, and
- 24:37Speaker 1: if they haven't been, we try to go out and
- 24:40Speaker 1: make a phone call to call them and see if
- 24:42Speaker 1: they're you know, still here. And the interviewer was like,
- 24:48Speaker 1: are you drunk? That's what it sounds like. That is
- 24:51Speaker 1: the follow up question. Oh man, So yeah, they I
- 24:54Speaker 1: mean supposedly because of things like that. Scripts Howard News
- 24:57Speaker 1: Service investigation in two eleven sixteen minutes did a big one,
- 25:01Speaker 1: and I think, yeah, for sure, Um, yes, it is
- 25:09Speaker 1: like the truth of what you just have ran through
- 25:11Speaker 1: me like a bolt. Um. But the Social Security Administration
- 25:16Speaker 1: has finally kind of started to be responsive and they
- 25:18Speaker 1: are supposedly undertaking reforms, including having investigators try to root
- 25:23Speaker 1: this out themselves, which ironically they're relying on other government
- 25:27Speaker 1: databases like this guy said medicare to check their records against.
- 25:31Speaker 1: They've stopped taking reports from the state and now only
- 25:34Speaker 1: except um direct reports from people. But that in itself
- 25:40Speaker 1: opened up another problem because they went back and cleared
- 25:43Speaker 1: out the records of like five million Americans whose deaths
- 25:47Speaker 1: have been reported from state databases, so that six million
- 25:51Speaker 1: went to something like eleven million of dead people who
- 25:54Speaker 1: aren't on there. Now, are they actually recommending that you
- 25:59Speaker 1: pull your credit report three times a year? Yes? Really? Yes,
- 26:05Speaker 1: that seems like I don't know, You're not like that
- 26:08Speaker 1: affects your credit. I don't know if that one does. Really.
- 26:12Speaker 1: I know it's free for sure, but I don't know
- 26:14Speaker 1: if it affects your credit or not. But yeah, so
- 26:16Speaker 1: you get access to your the credit reports from the
- 26:19Speaker 1: three big bureaus, right, are you gonna do that? You
- 26:22Speaker 1: have you set up calendar reminders? No, I'm going through
- 26:25Speaker 1: now like once a quarter. I haven't the rest of
- 26:27Speaker 1: your life to make sure you're not listed as dead.
- 26:29Speaker 1: I haven't had time today yet. It seems like if
- 26:32Speaker 1: you're an active consumer in the world, you would find
- 26:34Speaker 1: out very quickly, very quickly. Um, without having to do that. Yeah,
- 26:38Speaker 1: that scripts service. Though, when they found the like thirty
- 26:40Speaker 1: four thousand people who have been listed as dead, they
- 26:44Speaker 1: tried to contact as many of them as they could,
- 26:46Speaker 1: and they said about half of the people were well
- 26:49Speaker 1: aware that they were listed as dead names through nightmare struggles,
- 26:53Speaker 1: but strangely like half had no idea what they were
- 26:55Speaker 1: talking about. So it's like, what kind of life do
- 26:58Speaker 1: you have to live to not be aware of that?
- 27:01Speaker 1: Because you you or I would come up against it
- 27:03Speaker 1: within a week or a month or something. It seems like, yeah,
- 27:06Speaker 1: like there would be something that came up where it's like,
- 27:08Speaker 1: wait a minute, but like it says this information isn't
- 27:12Speaker 1: is incomplete, or it says you're dead or something like that.
- 27:14Speaker 1: We find out pretty or just to go get money
- 27:16Speaker 1: out of a cash machine, it might say sorry, your
- 27:19Speaker 1: pen doesn't work. But I think the recommendation is in
- 27:22Speaker 1: addition to finding out that your listed is dead, there's
- 27:26Speaker 1: also a lot of other stuff that that you can
- 27:28Speaker 1: kind of keep tabs on by looking at your credit
- 27:31Speaker 1: report three times a year, once every four months. Yeah,
- 27:35Speaker 1: and they say the real solution for all of us
- 27:37Speaker 1: would be if every company on the planet doesn't require
- 27:42Speaker 1: Well here's the thing though, they can't legally require your
- 27:45Speaker 1: social Security number two open up or start a telephone
- 27:50Speaker 1: in your name at a home, but they'll ask for it.
- 27:52Speaker 1: And if you refuse to give it, like, you may
- 27:56Speaker 1: not be able to get at all, or you may
- 27:57Speaker 1: just have a really really hard time. Yeah, they can
- 27:59Speaker 1: refuse to do busin with you. And that's the crux
- 28:01Speaker 1: of the problem because that de facto means that you
- 28:05Speaker 1: need to play ball whether you want to give your
- 28:08Speaker 1: Social Security number out or not. Tough, if you want
- 28:12Speaker 1: that internet service or that cable service, or you want
- 28:15Speaker 1: that haircut, you're gonna have to play ball. Yeah, it
- 28:18Speaker 1: was I remember growing up. It was a like I
- 28:21Speaker 1: remember I had a Social Security card and I remember
- 28:25Speaker 1: my mom being like, you gotta put that in your
- 28:27Speaker 1: desk royer. Remember, don't touch it. Ever, if somebody comes
- 28:30Speaker 1: near your your drawer, you shoot them with with this gun. Yeah,
- 28:34Speaker 1: it was crazy. And now it's just like I'd probably
- 28:36Speaker 1: give out my social like twice a month. Right. But
- 28:41Speaker 1: but because of those breaches, because so many people have
- 28:45Speaker 1: your Social Security number now, and because hackers have gotten
- 28:48Speaker 1: really good at getting into things like um, I think
- 28:50Speaker 1: it was Experience or TransUnion who were hacked in two
- 28:54Speaker 1: thousand seventeen. Yeah, that was huge. Um that that was
- 28:59Speaker 1: it was not only I read not only did it
- 29:01Speaker 1: basically just totally erode the public's trust and credit bureaus
- 29:06Speaker 1: to keep our stuff private, like they were the ones
- 29:08Speaker 1: who were supposed to be unhackable. And I think a
- 29:11Speaker 1: hundred and thirty seven million social security numbers made it
- 29:15Speaker 1: out into the wild from that hack. Um that that
- 29:21Speaker 1: that not only eroded trust in the credit bureaus, it
- 29:23Speaker 1: was the beginning of the end for using social security
- 29:26Speaker 1: numbers like we do to authenticate or as identify irs companies.
- 29:30Speaker 1: Some are moving away from that now, right, Yeah, because
- 29:32Speaker 1: they're getting sued and they're getting fines and they just
- 29:35Speaker 1: realized they can't keep this stuff protected. The problem is
- 29:38Speaker 1: no one knows what's next. A lot of people have
- 29:40Speaker 1: talked about like blockchain, but nobody understands blockchain, which, by
- 29:44Speaker 1: the way, we should totally do a blockchain episode. Um,
- 29:48Speaker 1: but everybody's kind of like, it's probably gonna be blockchain,
- 29:50Speaker 1: But first time to go figure out what blockchain is,
- 29:53Speaker 1: and then we'll figure out how to do social security
- 29:55Speaker 1: numbers through blockchain. I'm sure in some offices they're like,
- 29:58Speaker 1: you know, the old barcode on the back of the
- 29:59Speaker 1: neck seems silly, but surewood work. Have you seen Brazil?
- 30:05Speaker 1: Should we take a break? Oh yeah, let's all right.
- 30:08Speaker 1: Let's take another break, and we're gonna talk a little
- 30:10Speaker 1: bit about the rest of the world right after this
- 30:17Speaker 1: and things and chop and chock stop. So chuck, we're
- 30:45Speaker 1: going around the world in eighty days in our ninth
- 30:48Speaker 1: little balloon. Actually, I said, we're going to talk about
- 30:51Speaker 1: the rest of the world. We're only going to talk
- 30:52Speaker 1: about one more place in the world. Hey man, I
- 30:55Speaker 1: got Canada. Oh yeah, the UK. Okay. Basically, anywhere there's
- 31:01Speaker 1: a country with a bureaucracy, in a country where people die,
- 31:05Speaker 1: there's going to be someone erroneously listed as dead. All right,
- 31:08Speaker 1: so let's go to India. In India, it's not always
- 31:12Speaker 1: an accident. Uh, sometimes it's an error. But sometimes, um,
- 31:17Speaker 1: you can do what they call quote killing people on
- 31:19Speaker 1: paper end quote um in order to say their property
- 31:24Speaker 1: is mine, to lay claim to something legally, you can uh,
- 31:29Speaker 1: you can do so especially I mean they don't it's
- 31:31Speaker 1: not legal, but it's something that happens no, you can
- 31:34Speaker 1: bribe an official who will say, yeah, okay, yes, this
- 31:37Speaker 1: person is dead, thank you for reporting their death. Here
- 31:41Speaker 1: is their land or cousin or whoever. Well supposedly in
- 31:45Speaker 1: the um northern state of Uttar Pradesh. Um, it's become
- 31:50Speaker 1: a real problem there. Um. And there was a man
- 31:54Speaker 1: there is a man name Lal Bahari who in nineteen
- 31:59Speaker 1: seventy six at the just twenty two, found out he
- 32:01Speaker 1: was listed as dead and his uncle did his uncle
- 32:05Speaker 1: do this or did his uncle just get the land?
- 32:07Speaker 1: And his uncle's family, his uncle's family, they're the one
- 32:10Speaker 1: that that purposefully listed him as dead just so they
- 32:14Speaker 1: could get the land. Yep. He went to go get
- 32:16Speaker 1: a business loan. He was a loomer and he went
- 32:18Speaker 1: to get a business loan. And to get a business loan,
- 32:20Speaker 1: he needed documentation of his identity. When he went to
- 32:23Speaker 1: go get that, the local records office is like, you're dead.
- 32:29Speaker 1: And it took him seventeen years to undead himself. Yeah.
- 32:32Speaker 1: Fortunately for the world. He had a great sense of
- 32:36Speaker 1: um absurdity of humor like yes, but also like the
- 32:40Speaker 1: humor in absurdy, like he he realized, like this is
- 32:44Speaker 1: so preposterous, and he really used that as motivation to
- 32:48Speaker 1: make huge moves. Yeah, he would answer the phone, um
- 32:52Speaker 1: as dead person, which is uh talkin silent uh. He
- 33:00Speaker 1: would answer the phone like that. He organized the Uttar
- 33:03Speaker 1: Pradesh Reta Singh which is Udra Pradesh Dead People's Association,
- 33:08Speaker 1: And it seems like really brought a lot of like
- 33:11Speaker 1: attention to this through like almost like public absurdist public
- 33:16Speaker 1: demonstrations too. Yeah, like parades of dead people walking around
- 33:21Speaker 1: on the steps of like the government buildings and stuff
- 33:24Speaker 1: like that. And finally he did have his death overturned legally. Um,
- 33:30Speaker 1: did you see whether or not he got his land?
- 33:32Speaker 1: I didn't see that. Actually a great question. I didn't
- 33:36Speaker 1: even think about that, but yeah I I did not.
- 33:39Speaker 1: I don't know, but two people, um, because of his
- 33:44Speaker 1: efforts in that area of India where had their deaths overturned. Yeah,
- 33:50Speaker 1: that was just in one year. Even which why I
- 33:52Speaker 1: think is cool about him as he founded this organization
- 33:56Speaker 1: and got his life back in ninety four, it still
- 34:00Speaker 1: stayed on as the you know, the driving force behind
- 34:03Speaker 1: the Udhapradesh Dead Person's Association and won an ignoble prize
- 34:08Speaker 1: for it. Not bad. We did an episode on that too.
- 34:11Speaker 1: You remember the ignobles man. That was a long time ago. Yep.
- 34:15Speaker 1: So one more thing I we never really actually said
- 34:18Speaker 1: what to do if you end up listed incorrectly is
- 34:21Speaker 1: dead on the death Master file. Start answering the phone
- 34:24Speaker 1: is dead? Chuck, Yeah, exactly, shame the government. Also, the
- 34:29Speaker 1: other thing you're supposed to do first is go in
- 34:31Speaker 1: person to your local Social Security Administration. And by the way,
- 34:34Speaker 1: this is information directly from the s s A to
- 34:37Speaker 1: me to you, because I called them. The guy said,
- 34:42Speaker 1: just bring a driver's license at passport and we'll handle
- 34:44Speaker 1: it from there. And I was like, wait, that's it.
- 34:46Speaker 1: He's like, yeah, you know, the information matches, your picture matches.
- 34:51Speaker 1: That's all you need. And he said, and by handle it,
- 34:53Speaker 1: you'll mean nothing will happen here. That's right, right, And
- 34:56Speaker 1: I go, so do you give the person? So they
- 34:58Speaker 1: give you a letter saying this person's alive, they were
- 35:01Speaker 1: listed as deceased by mistake, give them their credit or whatever. Um,
- 35:06Speaker 1: we love you, so Security Administration And I said, do
- 35:09Speaker 1: you do you give the letter then once they prove
- 35:11Speaker 1: it or um. He's like no, once the file is updated,
- 35:14Speaker 1: then we typically send a letter out. And I was like,
- 35:18Speaker 1: how long is that, you know, And it's weeks easily,
- 35:22Speaker 1: if not months before you're going to get a letter.
- 35:24Speaker 1: But if you find out, the first thing you want
- 35:26Speaker 1: to do go to your local SO security office with
- 35:28Speaker 1: your passport and or your driver's license and say, surprise, yeah,
- 35:33Speaker 1: I saw that one person even had to have a
- 35:35Speaker 1: note from their doctor verifying that they were indeed alive. Weird,
- 35:41Speaker 1: weird life. That must be weird, gentry. So, uh, if
- 35:45Speaker 1: you want to know more about the death Master file,
- 35:48Speaker 1: you can go look it up. It's kind of interesting actually,
- 35:50Speaker 1: as far as bureaucracy goes. And since I said bureaucracy,
- 35:53Speaker 1: it's time for a listener, ma'am, I'm gonna call this um.
- 36:00Speaker 1: This is a follow up on the rape Kits episode,
- 36:02Speaker 1: which we got a lot of amazing and sad stories
- 36:05Speaker 1: from that one. Uh. This is about the money. The
- 36:09Speaker 1: money's because remember on the show we said that you know,
- 36:12Speaker 1: you don't you get to pay for that stuff for treatment? Yeah,
- 36:18Speaker 1: apparently you can get money back, which we've meant to
- 36:20Speaker 1: go back and re record a section and did not.
- 36:23Speaker 1: So this is by means of following up on that.
- 36:26Speaker 1: Hey guys, a longtime listener first time writer finished the
- 36:29Speaker 1: episode on rape kits and realize I could offer some
- 36:31Speaker 1: information that will hopefully bring some peace of mind. I
- 36:34Speaker 1: work as a medical biller for a hospital in the Midwest.
- 36:38Speaker 1: Part of my job is processing the sexual assault claims
- 36:40Speaker 1: that come in at our hospital. We have a program
- 36:43Speaker 1: for those who present to the hospital UH after a
- 36:47Speaker 1: sexual assault. We in partner with the state, cover all
- 36:50Speaker 1: the charges that result from the initially our visit, and
- 36:53Speaker 1: the patient has given a voucher for any relevant follow
- 36:56Speaker 1: up care that they may need over the next three months.
- 36:58Speaker 1: Is awesome. It is, and we realized that a lot
- 37:01Speaker 1: of states do this after we had recorded and published
- 37:04Speaker 1: the show. I'm so glad this person wrote in thould
- 37:08Speaker 1: say it is good to know. We also take steps
- 37:10Speaker 1: to ensure that the patient will never see a bill
- 37:14Speaker 1: or be contacted by our department regards to their visit
- 37:16Speaker 1: to reduce any re traumatization. I'm the point person for
- 37:20Speaker 1: this process here handle all the claims personally. I'm not
- 37:23Speaker 1: sure how many hospitals implement this program, but I hope
- 37:25Speaker 1: this helps you all know that at least here we
- 37:28Speaker 1: do as much as we can to alleviate any unnecessary
- 37:31Speaker 1: burden from our patients during the stressful and sensitive times.
- 37:35Speaker 1: Thanks for all you guys do. You have transformed many
- 37:37Speaker 1: days years spent in a cubicle into opportunities to learn.
- 37:41Speaker 1: Keep doing the great work. And that is from Maria.
- 37:44Speaker 1: Thank you very much. That was amazing. Yeah, Maria, thanks
- 37:48Speaker 1: for doing that job too. That's tough stuff. That was
- 37:50Speaker 1: the antithesis of another email we got who basically said,
- 37:55Speaker 1: regarding your little soapbox about how society should take on
- 37:58Speaker 1: that cost, keep your politics to yourself because I disagree.
- 38:03Speaker 1: I don't know if I saw that one. It was
- 38:04Speaker 1: a bad one and I just wanted to say that
- 38:06Speaker 1: that person is a butt head. Oh no, wait, maybe
- 38:10Speaker 1: I did see that. I couldn't even bring myself to respond.
- 38:13Speaker 1: I think I did, and I did respond. Oh what
- 38:14Speaker 1: did you say? I don't remember. Did you tell him
- 38:17Speaker 1: they were about hecko jump in a lake? There? You? Um? Well,
- 38:20Speaker 1: if you want to get in touch with us, whether
- 38:23Speaker 1: we think you're a butt head or a saint, it
- 38:25Speaker 1: doesn't matter. We still want to hear from you, you
- 38:28Speaker 1: can go on to stuffy sho dot com check out
- 38:31Speaker 1: our social links. You can also send us a good
- 38:34Speaker 1: old fashioned email wrap it up, spank it on the bottom, uh,
- 38:38Speaker 1: spray with perfume, and send it off to stuff podcast
- 38:41Speaker 1: at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is
- 38:46Speaker 1: a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
- 38:50Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
- 38:53Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.